The Amarnan Kings, Book 6: Scarab - Descendant

by Overton, Max

  "What if the object is not exactly one cubic centimetre? The...uh, curio does not have a regular shape."

  "Then you must determine its volume. Try immersing it in water--that is, if it will not be harmed by water." The old man stared disapprovingly at his pipe which had gone out while he talked. He struck another match and relit it, puffing vigorously. "I suppose you will now ask me how immersing it helps. Yes, I thought so. The curio will displace the same volume of water as it occupies. You will need a container that measures water accurately--say a measuring cylinder. Put water into it and read the level, drop the curio in, then measure the new level. The difference is the volume in cubic centimetres."

  "Ah, I see," Nazim said. "Once I know the volume I can weigh the object and determine what it is made of."

  "Exactly," said the old man.

  "Thank you. I will apply your methods immediately. Er, where can I find a measuring cylinder? Do you have one?"

  "Try the university." The old man turned away.

  "One other thing," Nazim said. "What is the density of rock?"

  "That depends on the minerals in it. What type of rock?"

  "Sandstone."

  "Work on a density of three. If we are still talking about a golden artefact you will instantly know the difference if it is gold leaf over stone. Now, do you want to buy anything from my shop?"

  "You have already sold me what I need, old man. Thank you."

  Nazim left the goldsmith and hailed a taxi, telling the driver to take him to the university. The receptionist there referred him to the Chemistry Department and once there he had to explain his needs to a bored technician.

  "We don't sell equipment. You need to go to a scientific supply house."

  "Couldn't I borrow a measuring cylinder and scales for a few minutes? I could use them here so they'd never leave the premises."

  The technician picked his teeth. "Nah, not allowed."

  "Could you ask someone?" Nazim realised the young man was probably stalling in the hopes of getting baksheesh, so he plunked a pound coin down on the bench.

  The technician glanced at the coin and slipped it into his pocket. "Wait here, I'll ask the professor." He was back a few minutes later and shook his head, grinning. "The professor says 'no'."

  Nazim knew it was no use asking for his money back so he thanked the young man warmly for his trouble, hoping to shame him (unsuccessfully), and went back to the receptionist.

  "The technician said to ask you for the addresses of scientific supply houses in Luxor."

  "Oh dear, you must have misheard him, there are no supply houses in Luxor. We have to send away to Cairo or overseas when we need anything." The receptionist saw the look on Nazim's face. "You could try the Agricultural Institute out on the Al-Oksor Road, south toward Esna. Ask for Dr Mubarak."

  The same taxi was waiting for Nazim outside the university and drove him out of the city onto the Al-Oksor Road, and the Agricultural Institute, where he once more gave his name to a receptionist. Dr Mubarak was in one of the fields near the Institute, so while he was being sent for, Nazim waited in the entrance foyer. He wandered up and down, looking at photographs of the Institute in all its stages and the three directors--two past and one current. Their unsmiling faces seemed to stare down suspiciously at Nazim.

  A door opened and a man in a white coat entered, crossing the tiled foyer quickly. "Dr Manouk? I am Dr Mubarak. How may I help you?"

  "I am simply Nazim Manouk, doctor. I regret I do not have any qualifications. I was hoping you could help me by letting me use a couple of pieces of your equipment."

  "We don't normally cater for members of the public, you understand. Some of our equipment is quite expensive and needs technical training for its proper operation."

  "I think I could probably operate it," Nazim said with a smile. "I was told how to by a gentleman in the city."

  Mubarak answered with a smile of his own. "I hope you were not after a gas chromatograph. I have been trying to get one for the Institute for nearly two years."

  "Nothing so exotic, doctor--whatever that gas chroma thing is. All I need is a measuring cylinder and a scale to weigh something."

  "Is that all?" Mubarak looked at his watch. "It's nearly noon. Do you wish to perform Dhuhr prayers? I don't, myself, but I can guide you to a private room if you wish to."

  "No, I'll abstain, thank you doctor."

  "Then come to my laboratory, and we will find your equipment."

  "Even though I'm a member of the public?"

  "Perhaps I could make the measurements. Then no one can complain."

  Dr Mubarak took Nazim through some double doors and down a long corridor, passing many doors. Through some of the windows set in the doors, Nazim could see laboratories, offices, and what looked like a cafeteria and a library. There were few people in the corridor and they all nodded deferentially to Dr Mubarak and his guest.

  "Here we are." Mubarak held open a door and let Nazim precede him into a large laboratory. Benches lined the walls and two more extended down the middle of the room. Glassware and bottles lined shelves above the benches, and the air had a sharp chemical odour to it.

  "A measuring cylinder and a laboratory balance, you said? You wouldn't be doing a density measurement, by any chance?"

  "Er, yes."

  "How big a measuring cylinder did you need?"

  "I, er, need to put in an object about...oh, this big." Nazim demonstrated with his fingers. "To find out its volume."

  "You have the object with you? May I see it?"

  Nazim hesitated and then took the object from his pocket, holding it up for Dr Mubarak to examine.

  "It looks like a piece of ordinary sandstone, but I'm guessing there must be something out of the ordinary about it." Mubarak waited a few moments, expectation written large upon his cheerful face and then sighed. "Hmm, yes. I think a five hundred millilitre cylinder will do." He selected a glass cylinder from a shelf and half filled it with water from a tap before carefully adjusting the level to three hundred millilitres from a wash bottle.

  "Er, I'm sorry, Dr Mubarak, I should have said. The cylinder needs to measure cubic centimetres, not millilitres."

  A smile tugged at Mubarak's lips. "One cubic centimetre is equal to one millilitre. Shall I put your...specimen into the cylinder?"

  "May I do it?" Nazim asked. "I...I need to be sure of how to do this...er, just in case there are other samples."

  "Of course. I would advise tipping the cylinder and sliding the stone in rather than just dropping it in. You don't want to risk breaking the glass."

  Nazim did as he was told, the stone settling to the bottom with a soft 'thunk'. He straightened the cylinder and bent to look at the water level. "The water level is curved," he said in astonishment.

  "The curve is called the meniscus. Read the level from the bottom of the curve."

  "Three hundred and...thirty...five."

  Mubarak had a careful look. "I concur. The stone occupies a volume of thirty-five cubic centimetres. Now we remove the stone and carefully dry it." He tipped the water down a sink and Nazim caught the rock in a towel as it slid out of the cylinder. "Now we weigh it," Mubarak said. He walked over to a balance pan scale and switched it on, taring the pan in readiness for the stone.

  "Before we do this," Dr Mubarak said, "May I know the reason? The rock is obviously fine-grained sandstone and with a volume of thirty-five cubic centimetres, it is almost certain its weight will be...oh, around a hundred grams. Why do you seek to calculate the density of an ordinary sedimentary rock?"

  "It, er...well, it's a memento..."

  "That is scarcely a reason."

  Nazim had the grace to look embarrassed. "I would rather not say."

  "Well, that is honest at least, but it certainly makes me wonder. Never mind, Mr Manouk, keep hold of your secret if you must. Would you put the rock on the pan, please?"

  Nazim reached out and placed the stone in the middle of the balance pan, and it dipped under the w
eight.

  "What...?" Dr Mubarak stared at the electronic readout and closed his eyes, pressing them with thumb and forefinger before looking again. "Ninety-eight point seven grams. Pretty much what I expected, but..."

  "But what, Dr Mubarak?"

  "For an instant there..." He shook his head. "I had better have this balance checked over. There is obviously something wrong with it if it starts to give a false reading before settling down to the correct one."

  "A false reading, Doctor? What was it?"

  Dr Mubarak laughed self-consciously. "It's absurd, but I could have sworn it read about six hundred and fifty-something grams. That's obviously impossible though--with a weight like that the density would be..." He took a notepad from his pocket and made some jotted calculations. He shook his head and did them again. "The density would be a shade over nineteen." He laughed. "I don't know what happened to the scales to make it act up like that, but for an instant it read as much as it would if it was solid gold."

  "It's gold?"

  "No, no, no, that was just a glitch in the measurement, or your fingers pressed down on the pan momentarily. The tare function had obviously not settled down. I'm sorry if I got your hopes up."

  Nazim also stared at the smoothly rounded rock on the balance pan. "So now it says ninety-eight grams? It really is sandstone?"

  "Many rocks have densities around three or a little less, but it looks like sandstone. May I pick it up?"

  Nazim felt an odd mixture of disappointment that the rock was mere sandstone after all, and elation at having brushed against a mystery. He shrugged. "Go ahead."

  Mubarak lifted it from the pan and dropped it onto the bench as if it was hot. "Goodness me," he muttered. He reached out and picked it up again, but this time his brow furrowed. "Strange. I could have sworn..."

  "What, Dr Mubarak?"

  "It slipped from my hand when I took it off the balance. It seemed heavy...but now..." He tossed the rock gently in his hand. "But now it is only what you'd expect of a small pebble." Abruptly, he handed it back to Nazim. "Well, I don't know what you were expecting, Mr Manouk, but there is nothing out of the ordinary here. It is common sandstone, nothing more."

  "Thank you, Dr Mubarak." Nazim slipped the stone back into his pocket. "You have been most helpful, but I won't take up more of your time. Goodbye, and thank you again."

  "No trouble at all, Mr Manouk. Consider it part of our service to the wider community."

  The taxi had gone, so Nazim sat in the foyer while the receptionist phoned for another one. He took out the stone and turned it over in his hands, going over what the scientist had said.

  Common sandstone...it is obvious when you look at it...yet for an instant the scales thought it was gold and so did Mubarak. Then when he picked it up...yes, but only the first time...so is it gold or stone? If this really is the golden scarab of the account then it can hide itself by appearing as a stone...but how? By the power of the gods? What gods? There is only one. Why would Allah hide this from me yet reveal it to infidels? It does not make sense .

  The taxi arrived and Nazim gave the driver instructions to take him back to his hotel. As the vehicle headed into the city, his thoughts returned to the object in his pocket.

  If this is indeed the golden scarab then it will point the way to the tomb--provided I can persuade it to work for me . Nazim smiled, his humour building into a chuckle and then a full-throated bellow of laughter.

  The taxi driver swerved and looked back at his passenger in the mirror. "Is everything all right, effendi?"

  "Yes, yes." Nazim waved his hand dismissively and as the laughter in him faded, he took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his streaming eyes. I'm not sharing that little nugget of information with you. You would think me mad. Will I share it with Bashir and Colonel Sarraj, though ? He started chuckling again and clamped down on his mirth. How do I persuade a rock to work for me ?

  * * *

  Zufir was exceedingly angry when he rode back into the Bedouin camp after several fruitless days waiting for a ransom drop that never came. He swore vengeance on the infidels that had presumed to dupe him.

  "Where are they?" he roared, seeing the empty hut and the shaking men he had left as guards. "What have you done with them?"

  "They escaped, Zufir," Tahir muttered. "They were aided by ibn Hawid's nephew."

  "What could we do?" Alif added.

  "You tell me. What did you do?" Zufir's face contorted into a snarl and his right hand strayed to the handle of his knife.

  "We followed them to the village and searched it from top to bottom, but they must have had help, for they disappeared and we could not find them."

  "I would have torn the village apart," Zufir declared.

  "The police were called and we deemed it wise to withdraw," Tahir said.

  "We asked questions though," Alif said. "Foreigners were seen on the road to Edfu."

  "You did not think to follow them?"

  "If we had, we would not be here to tell you what happened."

  "What do we do, Zufir?" asked one of the other men.

  "Let me think." Zufir paced and gradually his features softened and took on a cunning look. He reached a decision and whirled, striding toward his mount. "We go to Edfu," he declared. "Those foreigners owe me seven thousand English pounds. I intend to collect it, one way or another."

  Return to Contents

  * * *

  Chapter Nineteen

  The radio crackled and whined, disbursing staccato bursts of static that evoked oaths of frustration from the sweating operator sitting in the back of a military jeep. The short instruction course--no more than a few minutes really--that he had received at the hands of Lieutenant Fasal ibn Huud in Benghazi, was largely forgotten, and now in the desert heat outside of Esna, he was reduced to twirling knobs at random. Ali Hafiz knew the required frequency and the call signs necessary to make contact, but the instrument was proving recalcitrant. Even tuned as closely to the correct frequency as he could turn the dial, the vacuum tubes and wiring still refused to pick up or transmit messages.

  "What is wrong with this damned piece of machinery?" he yelled. "Work, curse you!" Ali Hafiz flipped a switch that he had overlooked and was rewarded with a warble that ascended and descended, ending in an even note. "Now what? Hello, hello. Answer curse you, you piece of camel shit."

  "Who is that?"

  The Arabic voice that issued tinnily from the receiver sounded angry, and did nothing to calm Ali Hafiz's frazzled nerves.

  "And who the hell is that? Get off the line. I'm trying to contact..." Ali Hafiz glanced at the piece of paper in his hand that held the contact details. "HJC17."

  "This is HJC17," said the voice. "Who is that? You have called a restricted military frequency. Identify yourself or switch off immediately."

  "Go rut with a camel," Ali Hafiz muttered.

  "Identify yourself immediately," the voice repeated. "We can track your signal and unauthorised transmissions on this frequency will be dealt with severely."

  "This is Ali Hafiz. I want to speak to..." he consulted the paper again. "Iskandar the Great."

  "Wait."

  There was a pause of several minutes, during which Ali Hafiz calmed down, grateful that the radio was working at last. He jotted down the settings on the dials and the positions of the switches for future reference, but touched nothing.

  "Yes? Go ahead, Hafiz."

  "Er...you are Iskandar the..."

  "Yes. What have you to report?"

  Despite the crackle and the tinny voice, Ali Hafiz recognised the voice of Colonel Sarraj and was tempted to sigh with relief. He restrained himself, however, as few people were relieved to be speaking with the Colonel, and he was not one of them.

  "I followed the...er, targets into Egypt and captured two of them outside Edfu."

  "Only two? Which two?"

  "The young man and...and a young Libyan."

  "The two most useless ones. Where are the others?"

 
; "I...I don't know, sir. They won't tell me."

  "Well, make them tell you. I need the woman in particular."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I don't need to tell you that I do not look kindly on failure, do I, Ali Hafiz?"

  "No, sir."

  The radio cut out abruptly and Ali Hafiz flicked the switches off with a sick feeling in his stomach. He sat in the jeep for a few minutes, trying to think what he must do to find out the whereabouts of the English woman. Ali Hafiz had an idea that torture would be involved if his prisoners would not cooperate, but the thought filled him with nausea. A clean kill was infinitely preferable--torture was barbaric, but alas, sometimes necessary.

  "Hey!"

  Ali Hafiz looked across to where his two prisoners sat in the shade of a rocky outcrop. They were bound hand and foot, and Ali Hafiz would like to have gagged them as well, except when he had tried it with the Englishman to stop his incessant chatter, the prisoner's face became red and congested and his breath came in a snuffling wheeze. The Libyan had said something about the other man's sinuses being blocked--whatever they were--and the alarming wheezing had only stopped when he untied the gag.

  "It is no use calling out, Dr Andrews," Ali Hafiz had told him. "There is no one to hear."

  "So why gag me?"

  "Because you talk too much. Be quiet."

  Dr Andrews had shrugged. "Why should I?"

  "I will gag you again."

  "And risk killing me? If you were going to do that, you'd have done it by now instead of going to all this trouble."

  The young man's words had been true, but now that he had spoken to Colonel Sarraj, Ali Hafiz knew that the woman was far more important and that these men were possibly expendable. That was worth knowing. He climbed out of the jeep and crossed to the prisoners, squatting in front of them.